As we leave the European Union, we will forge a bold new positive role for ourselves in the world, and we will make Britain a country that works not for a privileged few, but for every one of us. That pledge, to the people of our United Kingdom is what guides me in our negotiations with the EU.

Pardon me for having my doubts. I'll concentrate on just one. May said

[I]n doing all of these things, it must strengthen our union of nations and our union of people. We must bring our country back together, taking into account the views of everyone who cares about this issue, from both sides of the debate. As Prime Minister it is my duty to represent all of our United Kingdom, England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.

Our departure from the EU causes very particular challenges for Northern Ireland, and for Ireland.

On that we can agree. She added:

We have ruled out any physical infrastructure at the border, or any related checks and controls.

Except that not being in a customs union and not being in a single market means there must be controls. What is more, if there aren't any in Ireland WTO rules say there can't be any anywhere: those rules demand a level playing field. But May added:

But it is not good enough to say, ‘We won’t introduce a hard border; if the EU forces Ireland to do it, that’s down to them’. We chose to leave; we have a responsibility to help find a solution.

Which is useful only in the sense that it says to all those who make the trite suggestion that this is the case have been kicked into touch.

But then she said:

Just as it would be unacceptable to go back to a hard border between Northern Ireland and Ireland, it would also be unacceptable to break up the United Kingdom’s own common market by creating a customs and regulatory border down the Irish Sea. My personal commitment to this is clear. As Prime Minister of the whole United Kingdom, I am not going to let our departure from the European Union do anything to set back the historic progress that we have made in Northern Ireland – nor will I allow anything that would damage the integrity of our precious Union.

So, no borders then. But no customs union either. And no known technology that can deal with this scenario. And a border that has a massive history of smuggling on it that 20,000 British troops could not stop, as Sean points out, plus a border country that is utterly opposed to the idea of any border control at all, as the political map shows (again, thanks to Sean):

Every single part of the border has a Sinn Fein MP.

Let's be blunt about this. May is still in fantasy land then.

To control abuse the EU will have to erect a border. Otherwise anything could flow from the UK uncontrolled - and you can be sure some would try to do it.

And there is to be no border in the Irish Sea to prevent that.

And no technology is available to run a seamless border.

So to be blunt, all options actually remain off the cards according to May, apart from the default of hard Brexit.

I agree with Sean, the mix that this provides is totally unpalatable. He says:

Some months ago there appeared to be a number of options but it seems increasingly likely that there are now just two: a Hard Brexit or no Brexit at all. No Brexit is obviously close to the Status Quo but may be politically impossible. For Northern Ireland a Hard Brexit will likely produce a majority for a United Ireland.

As he added:

The view south of the border will not be overwhelming joy but likely a dutiful acceptance that it needs to take NI on. I have argued that reunification might more resemble Cyprus than Germany but ultimately I think they will bite the bullet. There are two issues – economic and political.

And then noted:

The political difference is even more of a worry. The DUP voting Unionists are not well understood by the Southern Irish and there is a worry of civil disobedience or even renewed terrorism.

His conclusion is this:

To summarise: the prediction is either No Brexit or a United Ireland by its hundredth birthday in 2021.

I actually think it may well be the first, followed by the second.

And the same for Scotland.

May might cap Cameron as the PM who contributed most to the break up of the UK. And if Northern Ireland goes - as I think it may well do - then the end of much of the Union is likely.

So much for claiming to be the PM for the whole country. 'What country?' might well be the question to ask.

One other option which the Loyalists are seriously considering again is re-partition. Moving the border to say Antrim, North Down and Eastern Londonderry. I think this is a non starter, not least because Belfast is a Nationalist majority city, so some sort of Berlin solution has been proposed.

Relocation grants back to Scotland (which they would hate) or to the US Bible Belt have also been discussed!

I have many dear Scottish friends, mainly SNP voters these days who are the polar opposite of the ultra conservative DUP. The only part of Scotland in which they might feel at home is Lewis. I have a friend from Lewis who’s great aunt left the Wee Frees because they were too libertarian and refused to set foot on the UK mainland after the Pope came in 1982!

I’d chip in a few hundred quid myself to repatriate the most extreme Loyalists in the case of a United Ireland, but I suspect whereas they might have fit well into the Scotland of 1690, they would not feel at home any longer.

Thanks for that link Sean. Your story about the Wee Frees on the Isle of Lewis rings true. However, I think even the Isle of Lewis might vote against receiving them these days. Quite a few inhabitants are brave enough to hang out the washing to dry on Sundays now, the latest Star Wars film was shown on a Sunday in the cinema, and there’s agitation to open the sports centre.
(and I have suspicions about games of cards being played)

“Relocation grants back to Scotland (which they would hate) or to the US Bible Belt have also been discussed!”

US Bible belt makes a lot of sense to me, but I didn’t think anybody else was seriously talking about that.

Importing ‘the troubles’ to Scotland would not be clever. I suspect some Scots would also hate that. Besides which these are Irish people aren’t they ? Doesn’t it make the same sort of non-sense as to say all our black population should ‘go back to’ Africa? – a continent many of their their forebears left (under compulsion) centuries ago.

These sound awfully like the sort of solutions to ‘the NI problem’ which Tory Unionists would think of and consider reasonable.

I find it difficult to understand how we can even be discussing these ‘options’.

There seems to be an assumption that relocation grants would be available only to Protestants wishing to permanently relocate to Little Britain. I think many nationalists would take a million pounds, free house and job in Britain if offered. Belfast theft is a huge problem in the NI economy. But it’s likely that many more Unionists would take the same deal. And then a border poll might very well put the matter to bed.

Good but you omit something important. No border is not simply an intractable logistical problem and a potential trigger for resumption of conflict in NI, it is a direct threat to the Irish economy. Consider the consequences of, e.g., US hormone-injected beef being legally imported to NI, smuggled into France and passed off as “Irish beef” (and note, incidentally, that all NI’s cows became Irish overnight when British beef was banned from the rest of the EU). It would badly damage Irish beef exports and the country’s reputation for quality food (recall too that the horsemeat burger business was uncovered by Irish food inspectors, not British ones).

Very simply, the British posture on the border, besides having inherent WTO problems for the UK, is a direct threat to the Irish economy. Or, to be entirely accurate, the posture on regulatory divergence in the absence of a border is tantamount to an act of economic aggression against a neighbouring country. One whose citizens know very well, as most British forget or never cared to know, that the British navy occupied Irish ports up to 1939.

There’s been a lot of hatchet burying in Ireland vis a viz the UK since the country joined the EU and became prosperous (more so on a per capita basis than any UK nation). But I cannot think of a policy more likely to put the clock back than the “We are leaving as one UK” (including NI) despite a majority in NI having voted against it. See Jacob Rees-Mogg’s column in today’s Belfast Newsletter for an emetic, patronising display of “friendship”. Of course, there is a symmetrical sentiment about what is alleged to be the EU’s desire to remove NI from the UK (rebutted clearly here: http://www.politics.co.uk/comment-analysis/2018/02/28/n-ireland-isn-t-being-annexed-brexit-chickens-are-coming-hom).

Any reasonable person would conclude that either no change or continued gradual change is the most desirable and most likely to preserve lives and peace. Not forgetting that rUK subsidies to NI, a cynically gerrymandered state since it’s inception, has cost UK taxpayers more than was ever contributed to the the EU budget for the whole of the UK. These costs are set to rise and the UK’s ability to afford them will decline after Brexit when “life is different” (meaning: the UK is poorer).

Nobody in the UK should be under any illusion how all this is perceived in Ireland: an act of hostility perpetrated with the connivance of the DUP, aided with dark money (they spent hundreds of thousands of pounds on their Brexit campaign in Britain, not NI), not just against nationalists in NI but the rest of the island — from which it would like to be securely separated in perpetuity.

The EU is doing several things here. Firstly, it is explaining how you would achieve the goal – expressed as a core mission of the Brexit talks by both the EU and UK – of keeping the border in Ireland open. Secondly, it is protecting the interests of one of its member states, the Republic of Ireland, which is having its economic stability threatened by the actions of a leaving state. And thirdly it is ensuring that it does not create an open trade flank on one of its land borders.

The Jacob Rees Mogg article is just flag waving, and that’s me being kind

There was actually an explanation of how we achieve no border, albiet a completely unrealistic one. The Idea seems to be a fully comprehensive FTA so zero tariffs on trade of goods between the UK an EU. That doesn’t, they suggest, mean we have a common external tariff, so we are not tied to EU trade deals. We will have a dual tariff border with 3rd countries, charging a rate dependent on the destination of the goods, EU or non EU. Of course there is a immediate opportunity for UK business to be at an advantage over EU business because imports destined for the UK could quickly be processed and sent into the EU tariff free . That’s without mentioning regulations, which is even more complex!

I think, to be fair on may, unrealistic as the dual tariff external border idea is, it seems the only option available given the assurance of no infrastructure at all or checks and controls around the Irish border. It’s a sign that the red lines and promises made by the government are self contradictory, if our own government can’t agree with itself in its own demands it’s unrealistic to expect the EU to be able to , never mind want to, come to an agreement

I was struck by the enthusiasm with which Ms May’s speech was greeted. “She’s held the 2 wings of the conservative party together”.

Erm, she’s meant to be addressing the EU, not the 2 wings of the conservative party.

Depressingly, I really think the view of those “in authority” &, when has that seemed so shallow, is that Theresa has 2 years to hold the party together & that is what really matters. We may get a bad deal or no deal & we may end up with an attempt to reimpose a border across Ireland, but if she can step down with Anna Soubry & Jacob Rees-Mogg still in the same party she will have succeeded

Trade agreements are not the same as being in the customs union, and there are tarrifs on a lot of goods which flow over the border.

Switzerland is also free to organise it’s own trade agreements with other countries which it wouldn’t be able to do if it was in a customs union with the EU.

The Swiss/French border is not always manned, so you couldn’t call it a “hard” border, but it is still monitored. If you do get stopped by border guards they can and will ask for your passport, though the border now is monitored much more by electronic systems such as ANPR.

If Switzerland can have trade agreements and a land border with the EU that is quite “soft” why can’t Northern Ireland with the rest of Ireland? The EU is just trying to inflict a punishment beating on the UK as a warning to other countries that are likely to leave.

Fortunately, there is nothing us Brits like less than unelected bureaucrats lording it over people. I was for remain, but after seeing how disgustingly the EU have and are behaving I’m glad we are leaving and don’t have to put up with them any more.

OK, but EFTA is not a customs union, and only has 4 members (being Switzerland, Norway, Iceland and Lichtenstein).

Schengen has nothing to do with a customs union either.

So what Switzerland has is is a series of trade deals with the EU, and a “soft” border. It is not in a customs union as you are claiming. That is the fact of the matter.

So, if the Swiss can have a soft border and a free trade agreement with the EU, why can’t the UK have one with the EU?

Are you saying that somehow we are unable to do something the Swiss can, or is the more likely reason that the EU are being difficult to try and cause damage to the UK as punishment for us daring to actually respect democracy and leave?

“If Switzerland can have trade agreements and a land border with the EU that is quite “soft” why can’t Northern Ireland with the rest of Ireland? ”

There are perhaps many reasons – none of which our government seems to consider to be of any consequence since the border would be well away from Westminster, so out of sight and out of mind. They might think of consulting the people who live there.

Northern Ireland has only fleeting similarities with Switzerland I think.

“The EU is just trying to inflict a punishment beating on the UK as a warning to other countries that are likely to leave.”

If this is even remotely true of the attitude of the EU, I don’t think we have a right to be critical of their wish to act in their own interests. Brexit is entirely a movement of bare-faced opportunistic self interest. To pretend that our wishing to leave the EU is any way whatsoever altruistic, or would serve the interests of any nation state other than England is to stretch ‘truth’ beyond its normally accepted limitations of the word.

The general attitude of the European nations has been surprisingly tolerant of a spoilt brat nation which throws its toys out of the pram.

If there are no barriers to prevent transport of goods between the south of Ireland and the rest of the EU (customs union, single market), no “checks or controls” on trade between the Republic and Northern Ireland, and no barriers between Northern Ireland and the rest of the UK, can anyone explain to me how barriers between say Calais and Dover, or Harwich and Rotterdam, will work. I expect the ferries to Roslare and Cork will become very busy.

It there are no barriers between Northern Ireland and the south, there can be no barriers between the UK and the rest of the EU, and indeed thanks to the WTO no barriers between the UK and the rest of the world. Who is going to bother to enter into a free trade agreement with the UK if our borders are wide open already?

Ditto free movement of persons, incidentally. What is to stop a person moving from Warsaw to Dublin to Belfast to the rest of the UK?

“There are no rotational answers ….[except ‘swivel on that Mrs May’s cabinet ! – I think the sense checker failed to spot ‘rational’ would be the appropriate word]….. to your questions but it seems that the Cabinet remains wholly unaware of that”

The only handbooks of diplomacy and political philosophy that I know of that might shed light on these conundrums are the works of Lewis Carroll.

Rees-Mogg’s support for the Theresa May’s Mansion House speech tells you all you need to know. The purpose of the speech was to pacify Conservative Remainers, and to place Clarke, Soubry and sceptical Tory MPs, in as difficult a political position as possible if they do not accept May’s line.

May merely reiterated no Single Market, no Custom’s Union; and the illusion that a compromise is being offered, when in fact there is no real change being offered. In Northern Ireland the Conservatives simply want to take the final decision on what happens, and transfer the blame for its clear inoperability (a policy contradiction that cannot be resolved) to the EU. In effect the logic of May’s position will be that ‘de facto’ (but not ‘de jure’, but remember that the Conservatives do not care) Britain in Northern Ireland will be both in and out of the EU; that is the kind of chaos conservatives will be happy to exploit economically. Think about it.

What is being missed is that there are no negotiations, and it seems there will be no negotiations. The British Government intend to take all the decisions unilaterally. The speeches by May, Fox and the rest are intended solely to reassure their own narrow constituency because so much will probalby end badly, and to persuade the public that the Conservative Brexiteers alone are reasonable and serving the British interest, in spite of their policies being incommensurable with genuine compromise and negotiation.

Surely this is an opportunity for the Left in the UK and Northern Ireland to embrace the idea of a united Ireland again.

The left in the UK, in particular Jeremy Corbyn and John McDonnell who have supported an united Ireland for decades, and Sinn Fein/SDLP in Ireland could agree on this, and I have no doubts it would be extremely popular. Let’s face it, most people in the UK have very little interest in Northern Ireland and be happy to see a united Ireland.

I wonder what the response in the Republic of Ireland would be? Would they want to take Northern Ireland on?

“Let’s face it, most people in the UK have very little interest in Northern Ireland and be happy to see a united Ireland.”

“happy to see” is not the sentiment that would be flowing.

‘Don’t give a toss’ is nearer the mark if what you truly mean is ‘most people in the UK’. Even the politicians who are paid to give a toss really don’t, otherwise we wouldn’t be discussing this when it has already reached a state impossible to resolve.

In the terms of ‘ Ladybird of book of Economics’ as taught to Theresa May she has paid out one and a half billion of UK taxpayers money to create this political imbalance which she cannot resolve.

Some of the last of the 4 slides is surprising with respect to movement of people & workers, if I haven’t misunderstood it, given CTA and reciprocal arrangements already in place, some of which ante-date the EU.

A main point of the EU Customs Union is that the EU sets the tariff rates for non-EU imports to ensure no Customs Union member country sets a lower tariff and then uses those imports to re-import goods and services into other Customs Union member countries. May doesn’t seem to understand this or brushes it aside in regard to Northern Ireland issues. There is, however, another problem with ceding your tariff setting powers to non-UK agencies for countries like the UK which is the Globalisation Without Compensation issue:-

As if on cue after my comment Jacob Rees-Mogg reveals himself not to be the smartest pencil in the box in regard to understanding both the Northern Ireland situation and the reason for the EU Customs Union unified tariff rate policy:-

The politics of a reinstated border in Northern Ireland gets interesting, as in ‘interesting times’, very fast.

Firstly: beware of saying ‘Unionist’ as if this is a single body of people with a single position on the border. The Official Unionists – the ‘respectable’ landowners and the middle classes –
bought into the Good Friday Agreement. They do not want the border. They are less of a force than they used to be – Lady Hermon is their one and only MP, and she stands as an Independent – but Westminster isn’t everything in Ulster Politics.

The DUP started out against the Good Friday Agreement, and they are instinctively hostile to the EU. I will not go into the reasons why here: some things in Ulster politics are best left unexamined.

But they were forced to ‘row back’ on their initial support for Brexit because the bedrock of the DUP are tradesmen, small businesses and farmers, who face a severe contaction in their revenue, or ruination, if the border and the costs of customs are ever reinstated.

Then someone, who remains un-named, discovered that the funding rules in Northern Ireland’s electoral law provided a channel for anonymous payments of hundreds of millions of dollars into the ‘Leave’ campaign.

…And the DUP MP’s changed their tune again, and now support the hardest of ‘Hard’ Brexits, with a border.

Their willingness to prop up Mrs May’s lame duck government in Westminster is an overlapping issue, but it isn’t quite the same thing.

One or both of these positions places the DUP’s MPs and leadership at odds with their membership, and with the greater part of Protestant public opinion in Ireland.

Some, of course, want to be out of the EU at any cost; out of the European Convention on Human Rights – file their reasons under ‘best left unexamined’ – and they want Ulster to be safely cordoned-of from dangerous fraternisation with the prosperous and outward-looking society that the Republic has become within the EU.

Some, but not all: and nothing like a majority of Unionists, let alone a majority of the inhabitants of the Six Counties.

Talk of ‘betrayal by traitors in Westminster’ has been a recurring theme in the rhetoric of the DUP: the reality is that Westminster and the mainland population have only ever been dimly aware of the existence of Ulster, and care nothing for the economic interests of the citizens and denizens who dwell therein.

It is only a matter of time before the core supporters of the DUP internalise that truth, that Westminster is at best indifferent to anything they want or say or do. No matter how proud they are to be British.

The protestant middle classes of Belfast – really, the white-collar economy of Ulster – have been quietly getting along with this for decades. It’s what the middle classes *do*.

Don’t mistake this for political indifference. The middle classes align themselves politically with whatever seems respectable and generally supports their economic interests: and, as this isn’t England, they are consuming media that provide a genuinely informative news service to inform their opinions.

They are not politically inert, and nobody in the Westminster media bubble has thought of asking their opinions. Easier, always, to get all the headline quotes you wanted (and rather more tgan you wanted) from some opinionated rentagob with a liking for Lambeg drums.

We should, of course, consider Republican opinion; but that’s outside my competence. I suspect that it is far more nuanced than we are led to believe.

But the short version is: political support for Brexit and for May is somewhat less than lukewarm in Northern Ireland, and the idea of a reinstated border is more than merely unpopular. The DUP MPs support for this – and, indeed, their ability to deliver continuing support for May – has no foundation whatsoever.

I think it’s right to say May is playing for time.
She needs to string everyone along – especially the DUP & when the time is right she will make her move.
I think leaving the EU is more important to them than any union with NI.
She will sign off on the final deal with the EU & put a hard border down the Irish sea all in one day & immediately call an election on the issue.

Just a general question around the DUP’s relationship with the UK Gov. Does anyone know how much of the DUP’s ransom money has already been paid? I gather there are 2 tranches: the much publicised £1b and another £500m. Did the latter pre-date the former? I don’t recall hearing about it, so I suspect it pre-date the £1b. Either way, the duration of the confidence and supply agreement is bound to be dependent on the DUP getting its hands on the loot,or at least enough of it to satisfy them.

Meanwhile, there are two unionist candidates for seats in the Irish senate, who will receive the warmest of welcomes in addition to Irish passports if they want them and don’t already hold them. (Story in the Sunday Business Post)